If you can read this, you're a mammal. Congratulations. In fact, if you are reading this, you are an extreme mammal. Feel free to add exclamation points to the end of your name. You are an extreme mammal according to the Field Museum, which recently opened its "Extreme Mammals" exhibit, a traveling show organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It's 7,000 square feet packed with 100-plus examples of taxidermied weirdness, eerily lifelike models of extinct mammals and remarkable skeletons. For instance, a skeleton of the nocturnal kinkajou — aka the Central American honey bear.

Honey bear don't care if gawk. This honey bear dead.

According to the museum, his most extreme trait is his tail, which is used as an extra limb. As for humans, probably our most extreme trait, says Bill Simpson, the collection manager of fossil vertebrates, is "our extremely large brain, which gave us a key evolutionary advantage, helping to free up our hands for hunting." However, Ann Altschwager, exhibitions project manager, said "maybe the most extreme thing about humans is that we don't hop everywhere, that we walk on two legs." Either way, tucked into the show, among the skeleton of the now extinct species of "walking whale," a 52-million year-old fossil of the earliest bat (bats are mammals, too) and a Chinese water deer (which has extremely vampire-ish fangs), is a human skeleton.

Incidentally, you're a mammal for several reasons — one of which is that you have three middle-ear bones.

Not an exactly thrilling reason. But that's exactly why the "extreme" umbrella thrown over this show is less arbitrary and more useful than it might appear, Simpson said. "It's a good way of showing off the sometimes shocking diversity within mammals. Dinosaurs get all the press, but mammals, which are not as old as dinosaurs, are in some ways much more diverse and stranger than dinosaurs." Or rather, as Altschwager put it, stepping into the "Extreme Isolation" area of the exhibit: "Put 'em on an island and things get weird."

'Extreme Mammals'

When: Through Jan. 6, 2013

Where: Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive

Tickets: $15-$22 at 312-992-9410 or fieldmuseum.org, includes general admission